More Presidential Race stuff, teen brains, and other topics

Your teenage daughter gets top marks in school, captains the debate team, and volunteers at a shelter for homeless people. But while driving the family car, she text-messages her best friend and rear-ends another vehicle. How can teens be so clever, accomplished, and responsible—and reckless at the same time? Easily, according to two physicians at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School (HMS) who have been exploring the unique structure and chemistry of the adolescent brain. “The teenage brain is not just an adult brain with fewer miles on it,” says Frances E. Jensen, a professor of neurology. “It’s a paradoxical time of development. These are people with very sharp brains, but they’re not quite sure what to do with them.”

Research during the past 10 years, powered by technology such as functional magnetic resonance imaging, has revealed that young brains have both fast-growing synapses and sections that remain unconnected. This leaves teens easily influenced by their environment and more prone to impulsive behavior, even without the impact of souped-up hormones and any genetic or family predispositions. Most teenagers don’t understand their mental hardwiring, so Jensen, […]

Science Note that a body can actually “disown” part of itself under certain circumstances:

Here’s a trick to make a rubber hand come to life. Hide your right hand under a cloth and stick the rubber hand where your right hand should be. Now have someone stroke your right hand and the fake hand at the same time. Before you know it, you’ll begin to “feel” sensation in the rubber hand. But what happens to your real right hand? New research suggests that your body begins to disown it. Psychologists have used the rubber-hand illusion for years to study how people perceive body boundaries. How, for example, does your brain know where you stop and a bicycle begins? Brain scans reveal that the premotor cortex, the part of the brain that integrates vision and touch, helps the body adopt the rubber hand, but no one had looked at what was going on with the hidden, real hand.

Lorimer Moseley, a neuroscientist who studies pain at Oxford University in the U.K., and colleagues repeated the rubber-hand experiment on 11 volunteers, but they added a twist: They took the temperature of the hidden hand. During the 7-minute illusion, the researchers found that the average temperature of the hidden hand dropped 0.27°C in all participants; the temperature of other body parts, including the person’s other real hand, remained the same.

Nevertheless, by “atheism” I mean that I hold non-existence of a deity to be the null hypothesis and that I have not seen sufficient evidence to overturn the null hypothesis. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

But, this means that “atheism” is where I am parked for the moment; I’d gladly leave if I saw convincing evidence, and happily stay if I don’t.

What I believe in is free inquiry, reason and skepticism. Hence, atheistic regimes like Mao’s or Pol-Pot’s would have had me executed on the spot!

Back in my Christian days, I was sickened when I read these stories. I ended up rationalizing them by appealing to “higher Biblical scholarship” which told me that these stories were made up BS designed for an effect. But that started the critical thinking flowing….

McCain’s new ad, released on Day 3 of the Democratic National Convention, quotes Obama saying that Iran is a “tiny” country that “doesn’t pose a serious threat.” It implies that he fails to see Iran’s threat to Israel.

The picture changes dramatically when Obama’s full quotes are considered:

* Obama actually said of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela: “These countries are tiny compared to the Soviet Union” (emphasis ours).

* Likewise, he said those countries don’t pose a serious threat to the United States “the way the Soviet Union posed a threat to us.”

* Obama has also said in speeches that Iran is Israel’s greatest threat, and a serious threat to the region, and he has discussed its sponsorship of terrorism. […]

Of course, I could point out that Obama, unlike McCain, actually knows something about Iran.

According to Congressional Quarterly, McCain’s presidential support scores (the percentage of roll call votes on which he sided with Bush’s position) for each completed individual year of Bush’s presidency are:

Remember that McCain isn’t talking to a bunch of soft-handed Ollies. He is talking to:

rake hot asphalt in the summertime;
maintain air conditioning systems in attics that can feel over 110 degree on a hot day;
pour concrete all day long while baking in the sun;
and freeze in the winter while they’re out repairing busted pipes.

Democratic Convention

Governor Brian Schweitzer’s speech. Note that he openly talks about working with Republicans.

Notice that this is completely consistent with what Barack Obama was saying all along, even during the days of the primary campaign. In this video, he talks about working with Republicans (“teamwork”)
Check out what he says at about 1:00-1:20 into this talk:

So people who say that Obama’s pragmatism is some “new move to the center” for the general election just don’t know Obama very well. He campaigned on working across party lines from day one.
That is one thing he was known for when he was in the Illinois State Senate.

Military war veterans against the Iraq war. Note that these folks take Democrats to task too; their viewpoint really isn’t partisan.

To keep track of my training. I train for ultramarathons (I usually walk these) and sometimes do running races, bicycle rides and open water swims for variety. My best ultra accomplishment was walking 101 miles in 24 hours in 2004. These days, I walk a marathon every once in a while (5:30 to 7 hours) There was a time when I could run a sub 40 minute 10K (did that once), but that was another lifetime ago; these a days 2427-28 25 minutes for a 5K would be more like it. I also have an off and on interest in yoga and in weight training. My lifetime PB in the bench is 310; currently I do sets of 4 with 175.

From time to time, I post what I am thinking about mathematically

I often post links to science articles, especially articles about cosmology and evolution.

I am very sympathetic to the “new atheist” movement, though some might consider me to be an agnostic. I reject any notion of a deity that interferes with physical events, but remain agnostic to the idea that there might be something “grand and wonderful” (Dawkins’ phrase) outside of our current spacetime continuum.

I am a liberal Democrat who thinks that the current social atmosphere is tilted way too far toward the interests of big business, and I reject the idea that a “free market” cures all ills, though pure socialism doesn’t work either. I am also a believer in the freedom of speech, including speech that I might not like. Also, I’ve been involved (to a moderate degree) with political campaigns, ranging from City Council races up to Presidential races.

Since being targeted by neo-nazis, I’ve started to identify with the anti-racist and the anti-fa movements.

sidebar

My Liberal Identity:

Ollie is a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Barbara's Liberal Identity:

Barbara is a Peace Patroller, also known as an anti-war liberal or neo-hippie. She believes in putting an end to American imperial conquest, stopping wars that have already been lost, and supporting our troops by bringing them home.

Created by OnePlusYouBlog Roll Notes
As of March 20, 2010, I went through my longer blogroll and deleted links that no longer work. Be advised that some blogs have not been updated and others have been moved, but you can get to the new address via the old one.
I've read and visited all of these sites at one time or another. However, I've decided to post a separate list of those blogs which I read regularly (some daily, others periodically).
My list of my regular reads
Humor